Philosophy

Humour

Zombies. First published Mon Sep 8, 2003; substantive revision Thu Mar 17, 2011 Zombies in philosophy are imaginary creatures used to illuminate problems about consciousness and its relation to the physical world.

Unlike those in films or witchraft, they are exactly like us in all physical respects but without conscious experiences: by definition there is ‘nothing it is like’ to be a zombie. Yet zombies behave just like us, and some even spend a lot of time discussing consciousness. Few people think zombies actually exist. But many hold they are at least conceivable, and some that they are possible. 1.

Descartes held that non-human animals are automata: their behavior is wholly explicable in terms of physical mechanisms. In the nineteenth century scientists began to think that physics was capable of explaining all physical events that were explicable at all.
Philosophy since the Enlightenment. Allegory of the Cave.

Plato realizes that the general run of humankind can think, and speak, etc., without (so far as they acknowledge) any awareness of his realm of Forms. The allegory of the cave is supposed to explain this. In the allegory, Plato likens people untutored in the Theory of Forms to prisoners chained in a cave, unable to turn their heads. All they can see is the wall of the cave. Behind them burns a fire. Between the fire and the prisoners there is a parapet, along which puppeteers can walk. From Great Dialogues of Plato (Warmington and Rouse, eds.)

This page translated into German. Consciousness. Search tips There are three kinds of search you can perform: All fields This mode searches for entries containing all the entered words in their title, author, date, comment field, or in any of many other fields showing on OPC pages.

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What is Consciousness?
The Relativity of Wrong. By Isaac Asimov I received a letter from a reader the other day.

It was handwritten in crabbed penmanship so that it was very difficult to read. Nevertheless, I tried to make it out just in case it might prove to be important. In the first sentence, he told me he was majoring in English Literature, but felt he needed to teach me science. (I sighed a bit, for I knew very few English Lit majors who are equipped to teach me science, but I am very aware of the vast state of my ignorance and I am prepared to learn as much as I can from anyone, however low on the social scale, so I read on.)

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Cradle To Cradle. One of the most influential recent books on design and environmentalism.”

—Alice Rawsthorn, The New York Times [McDonough] point[s] to a path out of the seemingly un-winnable trench war between conservation and commerce.” —James Surowiecki, The New Yorker A rare example of the ‘inspirational’ book that actually is.” —Steven Poole, The Guardian [McDonough and Braungart’s] ideas are bold, imaginative, and deserving of serious attention.” —Ben Ehrenreich, Mother Jones. Animal Thought.

By Temple Grandin, Ph.D.

Department of Animal Science Colorado State University Western Horseman, Nov. 1997, pp.140-145 Temple Grandin is an assistant professor of animal science at Colorado State University. She is the author of the book Thinking in Pictures. Television appearances include 20/20, CBS This Morning, and 48 Hours. Unique insights from a person with a singular understanding. As a person with autism, it is easy for me to understand how animals think because my thinking processes are like an animal's.

A leading neuroscientist describes how the foundations of our criminal-justice system are beginning to crumble, and proposes a new way forward for law and order. On the steamy first day of August 1966, Charles Whitman took an elevator to the top floor of the University of Texas Tower in Austin. The 25-year-old climbed the stairs to the observation deck, lugging with him a footlocker full of guns and ammunition. At the top, he killed a receptionist with the butt of his rifle.
Suicide Note.

The grouping is approximate, as paradoxes may fit into more than one category. Because of varying definitions of the term paradox, some of the following are not considered to be paradoxes by everyone. This list collects only scenarios that have been called a paradox by at least one source and have their own article. Although considered paradoxes, some of these are based on fallacious reasoning, or incomplete/faulty analysis. Informally, the term is often used to describe a counter-intuitive result. Logic[edit] Self-reference[edit] These paradoxes have in common a contradiction arising from self-reference. Barber paradox: A barber (who is a man) shaves all and only those men who do not shave themselves.